Oh, my bad, I apologize, I come from a heavy PvP background and those aren't specifically STO terms. "Instagibbed" is when you die to extremely high burst anywhere from within a few seconds to half a minute (in STO they tend to say he or she "popped"). Min-maxing is where you put on your giant nerd cap and test hard numbers, compare items/builds/tactics, use log parsers, etc. to get the highest possible desirable performance and the lowest possible undesirable performance from your character. It's kind of like trying to find out what the absolute limits of the game engine are.

It's worth remembering that in STO, there's no penalty for losing (in fact you still get a tiny lil bit of gil as a remuneration). There's always something you can learn from a death or a defeat, and the more you know about these situations, the faster you'll get better. You can also just straight up ask someone what it is they're doing, since most people take pride in their builds and are flattered if people ask about them.

Sad Panda Cubs isnt about joining a fleet. Its also a chat channel in game where you will get advice on whatever PVP related question you have without being made to feel like a noob. Also, its not just the Sad Pandas who help.

Good attitude! Now, if only 10% from pveers would be like you... After you'll have a bit of experience, you'll see that the people that are the most verbally aggressive go down first. Because instead of investing their energy in making a good build and spec, keeping an open mind on advices, they use that energy to talk trash. When you see that happening, make that player your main target. They are the easiest to kill.

Hear! Sons of Kahless
Hear! Daughters too.
The blood of battle washes clean.
The Warrior brave and true.
We fight, we love, and then we kill...

Could someone explain a lot of the terminology ya'll use? Like I see things such as 'Instagibbed', and 'minmaxing', etc. I know a lot of the abbreviations, such as EPtS1 is "Emergency Power to Shields 1", but much of the other terms I see are going over my head.

I am perfectly willing to learn of course, as long as folks are willing to teach. I'll be looking at threads in my spare time, thinking about my builds, and asking specific questions on those threads.

Any advice will be highly appreciated if you wish to give it.

I really should make a thread for it. (I also try to explain some of our more common bridge officer ability abbreviations in each of my build posts, before using the short hand again)

Instagibbed : most of us come pretty heavily from various gaming backgrounds. Instagibb, refers most usually to near instantaneous kill, or an instantaneous reduction in defenses that is so hard to deal with that you're effective presence on the battlefield is 0.

Nil : Often refers to Totally Non Effective Status.

Minmaxing: Most of us are die hard min maxers, we pour over our ship stats, our captain abilities, to maximize our advantages and minimize as much as possible our weaknesses.

Faceroller: A derogatory that a large portion of us now use, to describe people with poor attitudes and severe lack of skill.

/Faceroll: the fictitious command that means nil effort on the part of the person typing it. Most often used to describe pve, or being in a team of solid pvpers, against a poor attitude equipped losing team.

Faceroll: Itself, is the act of putting your face on the keyboard and rolling it around to fire off abilities thus why we use it to describe either minimum effort or to describe someone incapable of putting up real effort or making us put up real effort when they would rather blame us or the game for their shortcomings. For example:
fij ds k ol
[w er
ok jli jko ;f.;/'
b g d
aw fir o[j; !! !!
____________

Hax: This used to be an insult that sore losers would throw around they still do really. It was an accusation that we are using some kind of special program to make our ships better etc. Or an accusation of exploiting. Most of opvp at this point has taken it as a compliment now, or as a joke. You'll find it in almost any mundane conversation we have in the channel at this point, for example. "Bacon is hax"

Haxcellent: Our endearing replacement for excellent.

fuklulz: (with the C before the k of course) something so stupid, that it's hilarious.

Your attitude is just the first step to becoming a good PvPer.
No complaints or grievances, but instead a healthy desire to learn from your mistakes and the intent of understanding why some players seem too strong.
So you've to try improving your performance without worrying about the consequences...stay hard, stay focused...your main target is to understand all the game mechanics...also the broken ones to win against your opponents.
This is a game, not real life...and remember this...the more you've vaporized the more you're learning...

After a fierce battle against the evuls a Fed Captain needs some relax!

Special Weekend Classes: Refers to the classes, Regulus (aquitaine985), Thissler, and myself have to attend each weekend, for um. Being naughty to poor defensless ships, raid bosses, and bridge officers (she wanted to dress like that honest! I never told her it was the path to promotion!), (that bop asked for it!).